I am seeing this too. Happens for a FLA opened in CS5 with publish settings for AS 2.0 - changing the target Flash Player version didn't have an effect. Had to revert back to Flash CS4 and back-save all my FLAs in order to change the instance name!

I can confirm this is still an issue - and a huge one at that. I have literally hundreds of CS5 files that I can now no longer work on unless i save them as CS4 files and work on them in CS4. No matter if I reset or restart CS5 - now NO cs5 as2 file will allow me to rename the instance. What an utterly disgusting bug - i'm now looking at dozens of hours to simple resave files so i can modify instance names - what a joke. Adobe - any help?

Just realized that we jumped from CS3 to CS5. So I have no means to save backwards.

Adobe? Any kind of work around would really be helpful. My next step will be to reprogram in AS3, but my flash is VERY complicated and I have just a simple change. Really need to be able to edit the instance name.

I was having this same problem and found this thread. I actually tried quitting Flash and restarting and on the restart I was able to change the instance names again. Maybe an easier work around than the CS4 route.

Just wanted to say that if you don't want to bother with saving your file as CS4, there's another way to get around this.

Just create classes for your assets, and then call them programmatically. And, as you all probably know, in case you have loaders, don't export them for frame 1, or there'll be a delay before your loader appears.

update: suddenly, I can access the instance input field in the property panel again. I have no idea how it fixed itself, but I hope this happens for everyone else too.

This is an ongoing problem; two or three times a day, you have to restart Flash if you want to change instance names for objects on the stage using the properties inspector. Very annoying! This is one of the most basic things that you want to do in Flash and it's worked in all the previous versions of the program. The option simply becomes unavailable perioidically, and the only way to get it back is to relaunch Flash until you accomplish your task.

This continues to be a problem for us, but there's another workaround: in your actions panel, click the 'insert target path' icon, and navigate to the instance that you need to name or re-name. You can now make the edit from within this panel, rather than on the stage.

Actually this workaround is only good for un-named instances. If you want to change an existing instance name, you're out of luck unless you happen to get editable instance names in your property panel again by restarting Flash.

Totally get your frustration, but don't get why classes aren't an option. I'm not talking about the [perhaps] daunting spectre of external AS files and OOP.

Just talking about clicking the 'export for actionscript' in the properties panel, naming the class, and then creating an instance of it via code. From that point on, it is yours to control however you'd like to.

These are for a client and I have to have everything on the stage (not my choice nor my prefered method of working), but it's required for this project. I think they want to be able to go and move things around and they don't have ayone that can work with the code.

It seems if you make a reference to it in the action script it allows you to set an instance of that name (basically. why would you need to set a name if there is no reference to it in the action script)

The status of this thread is set to "Possibly Answered". This is missleading, the problem still exists. It appears that the issue doesn't have one fix that works for everyone. None of the above solutions work for me, for example. The status of this thread should be set to "Ignored by Adobe". That would be accurate.

The issue appears in FLAs created in CS5. The issue doesn't seem to have reliable steps to replicate. In my latest case, I was working on the FLA for 3 days without incident, then the issue suddenly appeared. Attempts to force the issue to appear 'on-demand' have failed. I've used CS5, heavily (7-10 hours a day) since it first was released, and I've only had the issue appear about a dozen times. I'm running MAC OS X, with CS4 and CS5 installed.

My guess is that it'll be hard to replicate, because it is pretty erratic.

For me, periodically the instance name input field in the property panel becomes unable to receive focus. This has never happened with a new file, but happens when I've been working on a file for a while.

But I should add that when I first posted to this thread it was happening all the time. Now it almost never happens, and when it does, quitting and re-starting Flash always fixes it.

But it is pretty clear from some of the other posts that this 'fix' doesn't work for everyone.

Sukhbir, I work in a team of a few people making ad banners. We all periodically experience this problem of losing access to the instance name in the properties panel when trying to name an object on the stage.

I too have been plagued with this issue of the INSTNACE NAME WINDOW in the properties panel of a movieclip being non editable.

You can simply upgrade to CS5.5. That'll do the trick. Although for those of you not incontrol of your company's software purchases, try this:

Simply click in the movieclip's WIDTH box and hit TAB key. You will be taken into the INSTANCE name text box and will be able to modify...although the box will still be invisble to the mouse cursor. BAM!!!!

I think it's a memory problem. It happened to me as I was working on a file. I realized that I had Illustrator and Photoshop runnning at the same time. After closing all of them and reopening just Flash, the problem went away.

Overall I've found Flash 5.5/Mac to be kind of a pig about RAM. In particular, it takes a noticable amount of time (sometimes up to 10 or 15 SECONDS) to flip from one open FLA to another. Flash 4 did not have that problem. Sounds like an internal memory management problem/memory leak thing to me.

Same issue as well, i'm targeting AS3. Also on Lion OSX, Mac, Flash Pro CS5. Close and re-opening works sometimes, not always looks like it depends on how many documents I have open when it comes back up? I'll have to try @captdigital's and @initcode's next time.

Must be a memory issue. I never had a problem 'til I had to start using an older Mac for a project, then had the same problem. So I closed Illustrator and a Flash project I had made to test, and the problem went away.

For anyone who's following this conversation, I just ran into this same bug in CS6. Instance name is dimmed and can't be changed. The Tab key workaround still works, but the workaround is even more annoying since there are now more options in the property inspector. Now the shortest route is to click in the X-position box and then hit shift-tab three times to get to the instance name.

Had the same problem today CS6 - Cloud based, instance name not available, no other apps open, no memory problem 8GB ram available - closed and reopened app many times, created new AS3 files to no avail. Eventually created an AS2 file and the problem resolved at least for this session so far. Poor design to have this ongoing for so long for such expensive software used by so many making Adobe's pockets so deep.